"Spring Tension" Campaign - A piece of art !

[WolfK33]

I´m pretty sure that there´s already been lots of praise about the Belsimtek Mi-8 campaign on the forums and I´m in a little late having completed it yesterday , but anyways, here is what I have to say about it:

 

So, I was on sick leave for some time now not beiing able to do anything outdoors and the DCS flash sale came just in time, so I got myself BS2, CA and the Mi-8.

 

I have to admit that I´ve never been that interested in most of eastern hardware, and so I´ve been a little "meh" about the Hip as well.

 

So, I played through the training missions, still beeing somewhat "meh" about it and also having to fight the fact that everything in this chopper is "the other way around" from the Huey, my all time favorite chopper, like right instead of left pedal on takeoff etc... :joystick:

 

But well, beeing bored as hell I decided to take a look at the campaign.

 

Oh boy, am I glad that I did this ! The Huey campaign was already good, but this one is just great ! Just about everything about it !

 

The choice of the AO is great, beautiful area to fly that chopper in, and through the missions I really got to know it, finding my way around later on in the campaign mostly without having to look at the map and marking my position on the kneeboard.

 

Very very immersive, the voice overs are great, super story, every mission is "winnable", no "you against the rest of the world in WWIII" scenario.

 

The campaign taught me to fly that ugly fat chick from hell :smilewink: in joyride-missions, in emergency conditions and in combat, and taught me as I said to find my way around in "my" area of operations, and it made me actually like that bird !

 

Almost no bugs, only in two missions, where you have to kill those two guys on the roof by landing on them as the AI won´t attack, and in the artillery observer mission that seems to be broken in the current version, at least for me. Besides that the only gripe I have is that in missions where you´re not flight leader but have to follow the boss the AI is often so fast that it´s almost impossible to keep up, esp. in the mountains when having to climb.

And that it was over too soon...

 

 

So, in short:

 

Thank you very much Belsimtek for this absolutely stunning campaign !

I really hope there will be a second installment of this some day, maybe as a "goody" when the Hip goes out of Beta ? :music_whistling:

 

You guys should seriously consider maybe making additional campaigns and selling them. At least I would pay some bucks for campaigns of this quality, it would create income for you and more missions for the players than we would get waiting for "free" ones.

 

And I´m so looking forward to be able to fly this campaign again with my best buddy in the cockpit cooperatively when multicrew is here. There sure is enough work for two in this chopper.

 

 

Thanks, greetings,

 

Wolf

[Rabbit_]

I agree. Mi-8 is so far the best campaign I had in DCS and it forces You to learn flying Mi-8 really well.

[Ce_Zeta]

I am finishing my basic training with this Legend. I can't wait to start the campaign!

[Trubshaw]

Agreed I too used the campaign to improve my skills flying the Mil 8. Some real thought gone into the missions.

[ricktoberfest]

I am a little way in and can say it is more fun than I thought it would be. Like someone else said, it's not you against the world. My biggest problem seems to be death by vortex ring state. I never realized how stable the Ka-50 was till I flew this!

[number3]

I am a little way in and can say it is more fun than I thought it would be. Like someone else said, it's not you against the world. My biggest problem seems to be death by vortex ring state. I never realized how stable the Ka-50 was till I flew this!

 

Thanks to the autopilot channels, try flying that bird with all of the channels off. It's fun but scary.

 

 

One of these days I'm going to start this campaign. I've only heard good things about it.

[Slazi]

I have to admit, I still haven't tried it! I was always more interested in trying to make my own missions.

[Mango]

Hope to finish tutorials and start this campaign on the weekend. How is navigation done? Do I need to know ADF and Doppler navigation?

[audax]

They don't even work yet. Navigation is mostly done by looking for terrain features.

[ricktoberfest]

I use the Doppler for long range waypoints. Just set the course to what the copilot says and you're good. Almost all missions start over the village beside the FARP as the first waypoint.

[Mango]

I would love to be able to do that. Without an English manual, are there any online tutorials to instruct me on this?

 

This gives a good overview but it's not clear how to set the instrument.

http://kriegsimulation.blogspot.ca/2013/10/dcs-mi-8mtv2-magnificent-8-basic_29.html

 

I can manage some navigation comparing the briefing map to the terrain, but the map has so much clutter and cannot be zoomed, so it's nearly impossible.

[ricktoberfest]

Just set heading and hit the enable button, after that it will show a number increasing for distance travelled, and another for drift left or right of course. If you look at it it's actually a pretty simply instrument

[Mango]

OK, can't wait to try it!

 

Update: Thanks, that helped so much! It's like planting a little VOR/DME station whereever you need one. :)

Edited November 13, 2014 by Mango

[ebabil]

i have both huey and mi-8, can i play the campaigns with different choppers? un campaign with mi-8, and this campaign with huey?

[Mango]

I don't think so, not out of the box. You can probably edit the mission files yourself and change the player chopper to the UH-1, but I've never played around with mission files.

[ricktoberfest]

OK, can't wait to try it!

 

Update: Thanks, that helped so much! It's like planting a little VOR/DME station whereever you need one. :)

 

 

That's a good way to think of it. You can also set the distance to count down instead of up, or set a distance to the left or right of the heading that you want to be (offset)

[Mango]

Good idea, that will help too.

 

So now that I can navigate, I cannot get past Mission 2. :( I make my last drop-off at the mountain top outpost, and the script says "Unload chief". After several minutes, nothing happens so I fly back to base, but the mission fails. Somehow I missed a trigger, but it's not clear which one.

 

UPDATE: after a few tries I was able to complete the mission.

Edited November 15, 2014 by Mango

[thinkr]

I would love to be able to do that. Without an English manual, are there any online tutorials to instruct me on this?

 

This gives a good overview but it's not clear how to set the instrument.

http://kriegsimulation.blogspot.ca/2013/10/dcs-mi-8mtv2-magnificent-8-basic_29.html

 

I can manage some navigation comparing the briefing map to the terrain, but the map has so much clutter and cannot be zoomed, so it's nearly impossible.

 

 

Use the F-10 map and the Kneeboard.

Truely You only need the kneeboard and looking on the terrain.

 

The kneeboard has more than one map to look at. Try using the "[" and "]" keys to switch to the different map sets. The other versions of the same map are there with zoomed in points of the waypoints for you.

[oresteia]

Didn't want to make new thread so iam putting it here...

 

I've got problem with campaign, first mission, after landing in the first town(delivering documents), and then turning 075, passing the outpost and turning 112(i believe, something around that), i won't get to any scripted part of mission anymore, i just fly 112 course as i've been told until i won't pass border and get shot :( any help?

[TXSailor]

I've actually noticed an issue as well. On the second mission, reading the pre-brief, it says that the second landing will be at 2,500 meters. Well, according to my instrument when I get there, it's reading around 1,200 (I'm assuming the altimeter here is in meters?). I looked around youtube as well for other people doing the mission and their altimeters give a similar reading. Am I missing something here?

[Cibit]

They don't even work yet. Navigation is mostly done by looking for terrain features.

 

Completely disagree. The ADF works perfectly well. Both ARK 9 ARK UD work doppler works and you can even use a combination of ARK UD and R828 for navigation.

 

And IMHO the kneeboard is an ingame help and is not necessary for use in VFR or IFR

 

http://forums.eagle.ru/showthread.php?t=114903

[ricktoberfest]

Didn't want to make new thread so iam putting it here...

 

 

 

I've got problem with campaign, first mission, after landing in the first town(delivering documents), and then turning 075, passing the outpost and turning 112(i believe, something around that), i won't get to any scripted part of mission anymore, i just fly 112 course as i've been told until i won't pass border and get shot :( any help?

 

 

You are flying (drifting) too far south. Happened to me a lot at first. Look at the f10 map to see where friendly units are and head there.

[1.JaVA_Platypus]

I've actually noticed an issue as well. On the second mission, reading the pre-brief, it says that the second landing will be at 2,500 meters. Well, according to my instrument when I get there, it's reading around 1,200 (I'm assuming the altimeter here is in meters?). I looked around youtube as well for other people doing the mission and their altimeters give a similar reading. Am I missing something here?

 

I think the altimeter is set on "0" meters/feet at the mission start. I don't know how I know, but you have to put it on 1200m before you take off first.

 

Yeah, it is a small bug...

[BaD CrC]

Can you confirm that R828 is working for'navigation? I can have the arc ud deviating my rmi needle ok, but never succeed to have the r828 do the same.

[Cibit]

Will try it tonight mate. Got to wait for wife to go out;) It was working perfectly a few patches ago